Pages

Saturday, July 25, 2009

ExoMars Slip Confirmed

2016: European orbiter to follow up on trace gas discoveries and act as communications relay for future missions. A small surface package might be included. NASA to launch.

2018 (a very favorable launch year): ExoMars with NASA's skycrane entry and descent system and a second MER-class rover (presumably from NASA). These rovers could target any areas of methane or other trace gas emissions. NASA to launch.

2020: A joint ESA-NASA network mission.

Editorial Thoughts: This plan makes sense to me. It leverages past investments in technology and gives the designers of the ExoMars mission the chance to learn from the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. A precursor network lander in 2016 also makes sense as it allows a test of technologies and instruments for carrying out seismic studies.

3 comments:

Mark my words: In two years this plan will be toast. Cost control is non-existant, and this plan will slowly, ever so slowly, become impossible to afford. Watch. I hope I am wrong, but I bet I am right.

Good article. Whatever happened to "Smaller, Faster, Cheaper"? And, remember the Dec 2003 "Aurora roadmap"? --------------------------http://web.archive.org/web/20050211033949/www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/SEMXZY274OD_0.html--------------------------These are some of the highlights of the current Aurora roadmap:

* 2007 – an entry vehicle demonstrator mission to validate and demonstrate high-speed re-entry technology * 2009 – ExoMars, an exobiology mission to send a rover to Mars in order to search for traces of life – past or present – and characterise the nature of the surface environment. * 2011 / 2014 – Mars sample return, a split mission to bring back to Earth the first samples of Martian material * 2014 – Human mission technologies demonstrator(s) to validate technologies for orbital assembly and docking, life support and human habitation * 2018 – a technology precursor mission to demonstrate aerobraking/aerocapture, solar electric propulsion and soft landing (formerly envisaged as a smaller Arrow-class mission to be launched in 2010) * 2024 – a human mission to the Moon to demonstrate key life support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation and in situ resources utilisation technologies * 2026 – an automatic mission to Mars to test the main phases of a human mission to Mars * 2030 / 2033 – a split mission that will culminate in the first human landing on Mars

About Me

You can contact me at futureplanets1@gmail.com with any questions or comments.
I have followed planetary exploration since I opened my newspaper in 1976 and saw the first photo from the surface of Mars. The challenges of conceiving and designing planetary missions has always fascinated me. I don't have any formal tie to NASA or planetary exploration (although I use data from NASA's Earth science missions in my professional work as an ecologist).
Corrections and additions always welcome.